Unzipped (Harlequin Romance)

by Lori Foster

  “Buy it for her,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

  Sean’s jaw unclenched in apparent surprise.

  Lakota turned to the owner, who was standing by patiently, adding up her purchases. “Men. They think girls have no clue.”

  The clerk didn’t say anything. Maybe he knew better than to get into these sorts of conversations.

  “And what is it you’ve figured out?” Sean asked, slightly less annoyed than fifteen minutes ago, thank goodness.

  Lakota inspected the chokers hanging on a rack in front of her. “You think we don’t know what’s going on inside your heads, but it’s painfully obvious.”

  “Hate to tell you, but a lot of our thoughts center around one thing.”

  “I know.” The backs of her eyelids pricked, signaling the start of tears she’d already cried. “Unfortunately, sometimes one woman isn’t enough for a guy.”

  Sean came up behind her, and she immediately felt safer, more comfortable. Protected.

  “This is about Lincoln, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t stand him. You know, I was thinking, can you spin some bad publicity his way? He’s making me look like a viper.”

  Shut up, Lakota, she thought. You don’t really mean it.

  Sean didn’t say anything, probably because he was thinking she was doing a good job of ruining her image on her own.

  Instead, Lakota heaved out a breath, moisture stinging one corner of an eye as she turned to him. “I’m so in love with him, and there’s no chance he’s ever going to feel the same. To top it off, I’m being such a jerk about it.”

  At first, Sean made a you-got-that-right expression, but it turned into a look of pity instead.

  See? Her publicist was more than worth what she paid him.

  She sniffed, shrugging. “I suppose I want to put the screws to him before he puts them to me this time.”

  “What did he do wrong?”

  A chopped laugh, full of regret. “I thought he was cheating, even though I didn’t have any evidence. I don’t know. I was a nobody, and he was… God. Lincoln Castle, the soap star. It’s hard to live with a guy who’s the fantasy of so many women. He could have his pick.”

  “But he wanted you.”

  “Hard to believe.” That stubborn tear finally welled, tumbled down her cheek. She swiped at it, bucking up to show that Lincoln didn’t affect her. “Have you ever felt this way? Crummy and ecstatic to be around a certain person, all at the same time?”

  An antique clock ticked on the wall behind Sean. Then, “Sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be, I suppose.”

  The shopkeeper had sneaked away to the other side of the store, leaving them alone. Embarrassment swallowed her up. Why couldn’t she have kept this angst to herself instead of letting it all out? She’d also let fly today in the restaurant, and it hadn’t been pretty.

  Sean had shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing away from her. Hard as a profile on Mount Rushmore, wasn’t he?

  “Once,” he said, voice low, barely there, “I was with a woman. I couldn’t think of anything but her, during work, when I got home…always. Neither of us was looking for anything serious, so we messed around, kidded each other. Made a bet that she wouldn’t get emotionally involved during the course of our affair.”

  “Did she?”

  “No.” Sean turned his back on her, ran a hand over a pile of outdated records. Lakota noticed that his fingers were curled, as if wanting to tear at something.

  “How could you do that?” she asked. “Make a bet about love?”

  “Not love.”

  She couldn’t see his face, but his voice told her more than he’d probably wanted to reveal.

  Sean tensed up, left the shop.

  Lakota watched him go, frowning. There was a glitch in his story, something out of place, as if…

  Her own problems shoved to the back of her mind, she grabbed the nightie he’d been ogling. It flowed like olive oil over her fingers, the amber color rich and heavy.

  “Excuse me?” she said to the shopkeeper. “Will you ring this up, too, please?”

  Five minutes later, lingerie hidden in her bag and a devious spring in her step, she emerged from the store. She headed toward her favorite shop, a boutique that sold flower essences. Keeping his distance, Sean loitered while the assistant used a pendulum to lead them to the proper brandy/water potions, much like one would use a divining rod to locate water. Lakota had requested something to help with her career, and she walked out with three bottles that would do just that if taken internally two times a day.

  “You believe in this?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. Mind over matter. Oh!” She took his hand, walked him across the mellow street to another quaint cottage. This one had Perfumery written on a sign in the yard. “I’m out of my fragrance.”

  “Order it online.”

  “It’s personalized. They mix it for me.”

  “You have your own perfume?” His mind really wasn’t on the question or the shopping. He’d felt sorry for Lakota, with her scrubbed face and tomboy baseball cap. Felt sorry enough to talk where he shouldn’t have been talking.

  That damned nightgown had softened him up. He’d pictured Fiona underneath the silk. Curves lit by warm, licking flame, his fingers slipping the material up, over her body.

  He fisted his hands.

  “Just come in,” said Lakota. “They’ve got a lounge, and we’ll have a drink. Then we can get down to business. And…” She shook her massive purchase bag. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  She opened the top, giving him a peek of smooth silk. “We can talk advice, if you want. I owe you.”

  Advice? Who was this kid to be offering it?

  She gave a little hop of excitement, and he couldn’t deny her the satisfaction of giving him a present. Hell, maybe he would end up giving the gown to Fiona, but without the gift wrap of emotion.

  Why not?

  Sean held out his arm, and Lakota took it. Together, they walked up the cottage stairs.

  BACK AT Stellar Public Relations, Fiona was still on the phone. This time, instead of Linc’s manager, she was talking with the man himself.

  She’d already chastised him for the restaurant argument with Lakota, and Mac’s assistant had told her that he’d taken care of Karen Carlisle on his end. For her part, Fiona had spent about a half hour guaranteeing the online reporter exclusive interviews with Lincoln for the next couple of months.

  Bribery, the foundation of the entertainment business. But they called it “leverage.”

  Fiona’s stomach coiled and she reached for a water bottle on her desk, finding only the crushed remains of three other containers. Last night hadn’t only left her dehydrated, it’d caused her to go back to square one with Mac. Frustration, anyone?

  “Lincoln,” she said into the phone, “I’m about to send you to military school, you know. You need some discipline.”

  “I can’t help myself.” He sounded agitated, and she hoped he didn’t have any liquor handy. “When I get around Lakota, my circuits go haywire.”

  “Self-accountability. Remember that phrase?”

  “Yeah, I do. From months of rehab.”

  “Good boy.” She couldn’t help the fondness from overwhelming her tone. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were still in love with Lakota, and that’s why you can’t contain yourself.”

  Pure, utter silence.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Fi, don’t sound so disappointed. It’s being near her again that’s doing me in.”

  She remembered when Lincoln had first started seeing Lakota a year ago. How they’d gone to restaurants and nuzzled in the corner booths, so consumed with each other that they’d shut the places down without knowing how much time had passed. She remembered when the relationship had exploded—not burned out. He’d spent seven nights on Fiona’s couch, not wanting to go home to an empty bed.

  Then the rea
l trouble had started. He’d just begun working on his prime-time show—acting by day, carousing in the bars by night, picking up the random women who reminded him of Lakota. Crashing his motorcycle into a guardrail on the 405 Freeway one foggy evening, his blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit.

  The show had fired him then, killing off his character after only three months.

  “I’ve grown up,” he said, clearly knowing what she was thinking.

  “I hope so, Linc. God, I really hope so.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  The question took her aback. “For what?”

  “Nothing.”

  The one word said it all. “What, you think I’m jealous because you’re in the throes of love and I’m…not?”

  Why had she hesitated? What she had going with Mac had nothing to do with tender declarations of forever, even after the way he’d held her head last night.

  Great, she thought. Barfing, the language of modern romance.

  Linc sighed. “You could be happy. If you didn’t believe you’d had your moment with Ted and it’ll never happen again, you could—”

  “—What I had with Ted can hardly be described in Shakespearean sonnets. It’d take something more like a tragedy to fill in those blanks.”

  “Ted was a loser. I’ve told you that a million times.”

  So why didn’t she believe it? “I thought I was the person who lost in that scenario,” she said softly.

  Images assaulted her: Ted holding her hand while they watched the Dodgers playing the Padres, the two of them feeding each other hot pretzels and snuggling throughout the game. Ted taking her for a ride to rural Ramona, just outside of San Diego, where he’d asked her if she could imagine living with him on a small ranch, where he’d slipped the ring onto her finger. Ted holding her after they’d made love behind a cove of rocks on a blanket at the beach, counting the stars with her, making her wish on each one. Ted calling her in a hotel room one night to say that he and Crissy had gone to Vegas during one of Fiona’s many business trips.

  That they’d gotten married.

  She’d never seen it coming, him and Crissy. She’d been putting in too many hours at her new publicist’s job. But she should have. Even Linc had commented about how Crissy looked at Ted. How Ted always affectionately kidded Crissy about how she’d managed to retain her small-town innocence, even in L.A.

  God, she’d never be that stupid again. Would never open herself up to that sort of anguish.

  “Fiona?” Linc, probably thinking she’d jumped out the high-rise window.

  “I’m here.” She blindly shuffled through some papers on her desk.

  “You’ll find the one,” he said.

  Fiona forced a light laugh. “Spoken like a man in love.”

  “Right. How am I going to handle this with Lakota?”

  “Be careful,” she said. She put all those meaningless papers to the side of her desk. “Just…”

  “Watch out. I know.” He chuckled. “Will do.”

  They blabbed a few more minutes, then said their goodbyes. As the sun set over Wilshire Boulevard, Fiona leaned back in her chair, the light from the window listing over her blank walls. She hadn’t decorated yet. Hadn’t had the time. But she would soon.

  That’s what she always said.

  An hour could’ve passed. Maybe two. Whatever the case, most everyone had gone home. It was dark when Mac’s assistant tapped on Fiona’s door, a plain box in hand.

  “Fiona? Sean asked me to run this down the hall to you.”

  Her pulse skittered. “He’s in his office?”

  “Working like a demon, playing catch-up.” Carly set the box on Fiona’s desk. “I think this has something to do with the whole Flamingo Beach thing.”

  Business. Of course. “Thank you,” she said as Carly left, waving good-night.

  The minute the assistant disappeared, Fiona attacked the delivery, peeking under the lid before throwing it away altogether.

  She sucked in a breath at the sight of the gown. Then she darted over to her office door, closing it. Back to the lovely piece of work.

  It reminded her of a gin joint, an evening of Cotton Club seduction. If she put it on, would the material curl around her skin like smoke dancing from the tip of a lit cigarette?

  Oh, Mac.

  Mac. Damn him. This wasn’t playing fair.

  She picked up her phone, rang his extension.

  “Sean McIntyre.”

  Again, with the accelerated pulse, the tingles and anticipation. “What’s this all about?”

  She could hear him switch off the speakerphone, and his tone lowered to a graveled drag. “You like it?”

  She loved it. Loved all pretty things, even if she had pitched a no-hitter when she was ten years old. “It’s very sweet of you, but what’s it for?”

  “Tonight.”

  Tonight, tonight…

  Nuh-uh.

  She mewed into the phone. “Let me check my social calendar. Oh, now, I don’t see you penciled in.”

  “Then get to penciling.”

  “This has to be against the rules.”

  She could picture him leaning back in his seat, muscles rippling up his long body.

  “What rules?” he asked.

  What rules, indeed? “All right. Your place again. Say, eleven?”

  Always his place. Always in control of when she left.

  “As long as I can sleep in on my Saturday morning,” he said. “But I am coming into the office tomorrow.”

  “Glutton. And don’t worry. I won’t inconvenience you by overstaying my welcome.”

  Neither of them said anything, and Fiona took that as approval on his end. The silence stung.

  She lowered her tone to a whisper, ignoring the slight. “Be ready for my mouth all over your body.”

  He gave a strangled moan. Good, back in the driver’s seat.

  When she hung up, she dropped the phone.

  What was this?

  She stared at the handle, at her trembling hand.

  Nerves. Excitement. That’s all.

  She put the piece back in its cradle, taking a deep breath.

  Mental foreplay. Nothing more.

  That’s what she kept telling herself as she took the back way out of the office.

  Chapter Seven

  MARINA DEL REY was an upscale area where the houses piled on top of themselves as they perched on the banks of the boat-lined bay. Lincoln cut his Harley’s engine as he drove onto a quiet street. At 10:30 p.m., it was rude to shatter the peace with his growling machine, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself.

  Except in the eyes of one person.

  Lakota lived by the canal in a Venetian-inspired two-story home. He secured his bike below her dark window, took out the flashlight.

  His thumb rested on the activation switch. No turning back if he flicked it forward.

  What was he doing here? His impulsiveness had over-stepped its bounds this time, but he couldn’t sleep, knowing he’d fallen for her again. Knowing he’d fought with her today.

  Did he want to revisit all the pain? The keening hollowness of knowing he’d failed her during their first go-around? Did he want the temper, the stubborn ambition that went with Lakota?

  He beat the flashlight against his leg. Why was he here anyway?

  When he glanced toward her balcony, a curtain rustled through the open French doors. It was like she stood right next to him—orange-blossom perfume mixed with the ocean breeze.

  Not long ago, she’d rested her head against his chest after making love. Content in the afterglow, he’d close his eyes, taking on the weight of her slight body, wrapping his arms around her like knotted ropes, burying his nose in her hair, drawing her into him. Making them one person.

  God, he wanted her back. Linc aimed the light at her window, turned it on, played the beam over the misty curtains, realizing it probably wouldn’t be enough to attract her attention.

  Wel
l, it’d been a good idea when he’d hopped on his Harley.

  “Lakota,” he said in a harsh stage whisper.

  No answer. Well, maybe he’d have to get practical rather than romantic. He reached into his bomber jacket pocket, took out his cell phone, speed-dialed her. He’d never removed her number.

  One ring. Two rings. Breathe, man, breathe.

  She answered on the third. “Yes?” Sleep weighed down her voice.

  He didn’t know if he was relieved or concerned that she was in bed so early on a Friday night. Where was the Lakota who worked her connections at The Sky Bar? The Viper Room?

  Linc didn’t say anything, just used a point of light to write her name on the curtains.

  Seconds later, she peeked around the material. “Lincoln? Is that you?”

  She knew who it was. He shut off the flashlight, waited, but she didn’t move. “Come out, Kota.”

  The sound of a nearby car traveling the streets stretched the awkward moment.

  Was she still angry at him?

  Linc stepped closer to the balcony, speaking softly into the phone. “I hear Karen Carlisle’s going to visit you next week, compliments of your publicist.”

  “I hear you’ve got the same punishment.”

  Odd, how he’d been inside her only months ago, only to be talking to her from a distance right now. Sure, fame isolated him. So did failure, to an even greater degree. But not being able to get close to the woman he still loved…jeez, that’s right, loved…put him in the middle of a wasteland, made Linc feel like a remnant, a bleached bone stranded in a place no one would ever find him.

  “Please come out,” he said.

  This time, all the contained anguish throttled his voice. And she must’ve heard it, too, because she did as he asked, slipping around the curtain, revealing a petite, fawn-legged body barely hidden by white babydoll pajamas. She wore her red hair in a ponytail and, even from this distance, he could catch the pale of the moon in her blue eyes.

  “Hi,” he whispered.

  She moved closer, leaning an elbow on the balcony railing in order to fix the phone to her ear. She stood right above him, and he closed his eyes, savoring her.